The UK general election takes place this Thursday (12th December), and as you probably know, I love politics. And by love I mean deeply despise – hate with every fibre of my being – even thinking about it makes me want to punch, kick, suplex everything in sight. Or cry. But politics is important; it’s my life, your life, your kid’s life. Even your Tory dad’s life. We’ve suffered 9 years of Tory dads and Theresa May literally strangling children and murdering the poor and this election is a real chance to stop them doing that, which would be nice.
In this country, and just about every other country actually, politics, or rather mainstream politics, is viewed through a very narrow window. We get our news from a limited number of sources, most of which have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo – owing to their ownership being millionaires or billionaires who are doing very nicely right now thank you, and we have a public broadcaster whose politics editor is so far up the backside of the Conservatives she could give Nick Clegg a hug. All of this means that most news output at best skirts around the real issues that the Conservatives have caused. Usually it just ignores them, and at worst, it lies about them. This means that people can be uninformed about the problems the Tories have created, or have been given the false impression that they have done good things.
This week, The Sun posted a story about how Jeremy Corbyn is at the centre of a massive far-left conspiracy, citing trustworthy groups called things like ‘Aryan Unity’, and ‘We’re not Nazis, Promise’. Of course, being a responsible bastion of real news only, The Sun took down the story later in the day, just after everyone they wanted to see it had done so.
Laura Kuenssberg popped out of the arsehole of the Conservatives to provide us with information as to how Matt Hancock – the man who got an erection listening to Wendy Maisey promising that the Conservatives will build a new hospital in Warrington – a thing that will definitely not happen (we may never know if he was feeling sexual towards his speaking partner, or the lies she was telling about a new hospital) – was attacked by a Labour activist. Of course, the attack never happened, but Laura had to report it as soon as she could, otherwise that tempting job offer to become Conservative press officer after the election would disappear. And a Conservative source told her it happened. The Conservatives would never lie! The actual physical assaults of Labour activists out campaigning are, of course, of no interest to anyone.
While the focus of the media is on very real things, the actual record of the Conservatives in government might not be that well known by many. We might be interested to know that austerity has caused around 130,000 avoidable deaths, or that with another 4 years of Conservative government, child poverty will increase to 35%. We may also not want to know that, so we can peacefully do as we’re told and vote for the party of ‘killing the poor or, if we can’t do that, making them homeless’. Rough sleeping has increased by 165% under this government.
Of course, these things not being news suits Boris Johnson, the man who will likely win this general election by saying GET BREXIT DONE over and over and stealing a reporter’s phone on the rare occasion that he’s held to account. This is a man with no discernable talent other than doing and saying evil and racist things and having the overwhelming response be ‘oh look Boris is at it again’ but not in a ‘that guy is being a complete evil racist wanker again’ way, more of an ‘isn’t he a buffoon’ way. But not in an ‘I don’t want that buffoon as my Prime Minister’ way, more of a ‘look at that buffoon, he would make a great Prime Minister’ way.
It’s easy to mock these people because they’re fucking weird idiots, but they’re fucking weird idiots causing pain and suffering to a great number of the population. The Tories are the party of evil. They are quite happy to forsake the majority of people in this country to give their rich mates tax breaks and maintain power, aided by an unbelievably friendly press. This election is a real opportunity to vote for actual, real change. I know it is hard to feel any empathy at all for the downtrodden people of our country, the people dead because of austerity, the children in poverty because of the political choices of this government, the homeless who could really have done with the extra 250,000 houses the Conservatives promised to build and then didn’t. It’s hard to feel empathy for these people because one of the key aspects of helping them is to tax the super-rich a little bit more. The super-rich are the ones that really need our help here.
But that is the essence of your choice at this election, do you want to be on the side of the people who really need a Labour government, or on the side of this current, evil government, who have caused so much unnecessary pain and suffering to your neighbours in order to give tax breaks to the mega rich and hold on to power.
It is difficult to make this point without sounding aggressive, and I don’t really care if I do sound aggressive. A vote for the Conservatives this Thursday is a vote for evil. If you vote Conservative you are endorsing their record in government. You are endorsing the avoidable deaths of so many people. You are endorsing the selling off of the NHS. You are endorsing homelessness. You are endorsing families not being able to feed their kids. If you don’t like that I have a simple solution:
Vote Labour.
Scholey Scribbles 